I've seen plenty of interviews with Todd. In atleast two of them, where he talked about how to make games in general, he says its very important to let the player win. So ive got the feeling this is something he think about alot while making each game.
I do trust Todd in making a great game, but im still a bit worried about this - because i dont want to always be able to win. I want to meet opponents that will crush me and that i will have to prepare myself for alot more. Im sure we'll see some great challenges in Skyrim with the dragons, giants, giant spiders etc though. The reason i got a bit concerned is that i cant actually remember dying in Oblivion - ever. i may have died a couple of times, but just cant remember how/when or how dying even looked like.

So my point is, i hope Skyrim is a little bit harder then Oblivion. More unique challenges that you dont always have a chance of defeating. Cant defeat them? RUN!!!!! (or teleport, paralyze, then run, whatever suits you )

Any opinions on the matter?

I died a lot in Oblivion, so it wasn't all that easy for me.

I can't pretend to read Todd's mind, but I would imagine that "letting the player win" is not quite the same thing as "not provide any challenge." At least, I hope it isn't. Even if death is ultimately a minor inconvenience, the threat of it does add to the excitement of the game.

I think by letting the player win he means that there will always be an opportunity to win, not that you will win everything easily. If something beats you then you can go and level up and win.

Well he did want challenges. But he also wanted to give the player the tools to win. What im saying is you shouldnt always have those tools. you got the tools to escape though

I think "letting the player win" might be the sort of mindset that led us to level scaling in Oblviion, and how ridiculously easy it was to raid an Ayleid ruin straight out the sewers. I'd rather have places and creatures I simply have to avoid until a higher level. It creates a better sense of foreboding, as well as a sense of accomplishment and power when you defeat something that was previously unapproachable.

Any opinion ? 100% agree.

And I say that, I'm crap at playing. But I love a good challenge, coming back again and again trying to figure a smart way around the problem. I know I died once or twice in Oblivion, but like you, I don't remember how or when. In a few hundreds hours of playing a game ? That's problematic to say the least.

I remember dying in oblivion once , while jumping off cloud temple

yeah i think it has ALOT to do with the level scaling. but thats not really the topic here. agree with you on the places/creature you have to ignore until later on! and on the feel of accomplishment: its (for me) completely removed if i accomplish everything i try to do.
i must admit certain quests in oblivion didnt let me win, but all foes did.

Oh, I think I see what you're saying--you mean that the player shouldn't always be able to win every encounter, right? Well, in that case, I agree.

This is why I played Oblivion with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (and also why I died numerous times).

If you're exploring 3 or 4 dungeon in a row with no loot and only wasted potions and your not leveling up, then you feel like you wasted your time making no progress in the game.

I think that's what he means that with "letting the player win". To design the game in a way that you get a constant stream of small rewards.

The timing of every skill level up, how much gold they find, how many times you can upgrade your equipment, cool stuff you can buy, climbing in all sorts of ranks,... is all important to make a game more fun/motivating/addictive.

Only times I died was when I killed myself by accident, like by jumping off a huge mountain, going to eat dinner while swimming underwater and forgetting to pause the game, letting a wolf maul on me for giggles (actually had to do two since reflect damage killed the first one so I had to run and find another one while my HP was low enough).

But I want to die because I deserve it, if I go raid a ruin as a lowbie I deserve death and death I shall have, when I am low level I should stick to towns and beg people to give me grand quests of collecting flowers and hunting bunnies for them. As I progress I should gain the power to fight wildlife, then bandits & other humanoids, then monsters, then I should be stuck like that for a while until I get strong enough to take on a dragon.

yes! i remember picking flowers for the mage's guild in morrowind. thats the sort of stuff id like to do the first few levels in skyrim. earn some respect and money, getting to know the area, get some experience, skills and weapon. of course you could kill some scribs or rat, but not a troll or bandits or anything like that.

the first thing i did (and i believe it was the first thing alot of people did) in oblivion was to clean out vilverin. seriously? clean out a bandit lair at level 1, before even visiting a town? :/

This.

hmm maybe he means that whatever you do quests always end well. that you can choose between 2 persons to end the quest but not chose something wrong. mostly it is that you always get a reward or it would be screwed up anyway. hoping that will change.

Letting the player win doesn't mean every thing is super super easy (aside from to the most skilled players). What it means is that they can't design around the best players or it will be unfun for most potential customers, even most self-professed hardcoe customers.

You see problems with this in some MMORPGs where a very small minority of the player base is very vocal and gets the developers to cater to them, locking out most of the game's players from a disproportionate amount of the game's experience by creating content that is simply way too hard for most of the customers. From what I hear WoW tosses that out the window by designing so most of the players can experience the raiding, something that elitists who would prefer to look down on most of the other players hate.

The general idea of it is that people like a challenge but they do not like to outright lose. On the MMORPG side of things that means guild killer raid event tuning or mob tuning that locks out most group players is a bad idea. On the single player side of things it means you don't want your customers to think the game is too tedious or so challenging they feel they are powerless.

He's absolutely right, in my opinion.

of course letting the player win doesnt mean everything is super easy. but i think certain things should be impossible at early levels or atleast nearly impossible. and you always have the opportunity to run. and i get what you say on the too hard bit. i also get frustrated and get bored when i feel powerless. i want to be able to overcome most stuff, but also every now and then (atleast on lower levels) meet something i just cant deal with. maybe someone gives me a quest that sounds REALLY tough. at lower level i should think "wow that sounds a bit too hard for me, i should pick that one up later".

So basically i want to feel im in this huge unfamiliar world full of unknown dangers and tough creatures. to get this feeling, you have to sooner or later face something you realize might kill you (or as said above, get a quest that you already when reading it realize wont be accomplishable for you at that time).

I died once in oblivion. I got bugged in place beside those plants inside the oblivion gates.








Hopefully they don't take the f(ail)able 2/3 route. A challenge every now and then is a good thing.

New strategy... let the wookiee win. Had to do it!


But seriously, I don't see it as an issue. The point of games is for the player to win... eventually, and not annoy them to death before they are able to do it. Challenging is not the same as annoying, and it doesn't mean losing.

two words my friend

difficulty
slider

hehe i get what you mean. but going out at level 1 and feel that you can kill anything in your path just isnt right for me. of course, when you start getting strong for real, thats good. i loevd how i felt like a weak little pidgeon at first in morrowind, then felt like the most powerful wizard ever at level 20. contributes to the feeling that you have actually been making progress. if you can defeat anything you meet during the whole game, that feeling is taken away from me. atleast thats how i feel about it. and thats right on what made my experience with morrowind better than oblivion. yes yes i know we're sort of onto level scaling again. sorry

I believe you are right. At least I hope so.

The only time I ever died in Oblivion was when I would kill my self for fun. :shrug:

so i can get my butt kicked by a rat? :/


edit: also looks like alot of people, like me, almost never died in oblivion. "problem" or not? i guess ive played oblivion for a couple of hundreds of hours. and as mentioned, cant really remember dying

Yes, you may die more easily, but then you end up hacking away at something for five minutes. Get's a little tedious, I think.

But yes, difficulty slider is a quick fix if you're looking to die more quickly.

I agree.

I want to win in the end but I want to struggle really hard! I want to be made to flee, and then come back at a higher level.

haha, i meant use the slider if you want to die in oblivion.

but with the overhaul of the scaling system, im thinking that the challenge will be appropriate for the situation. in most instances anyways.

i want to win, but not just by charging in and hacking/spell spaming
i would like to alter the situation so that i come out the victor, like on bioshock where you set up all your trap wires and plan out the fight before you take on the big daddys
it made you think, and (on hard difficulty) even with everything set up, it was still a fight for your life and kept you on your toes.